Salty Ghosts
by ForeverChasingDreams
Summary: Buried memories don't stay that way for long, especially when there is an eight-year-old daughter lying, hungry, in the Medbay, newly rescued from Cerberus. Jim tries to deal. Bones helps.


_This is my first attempt at writing Star Trek and I am a relative newbie to the fandom, so I hope you enjoy :) I apologise to those waiting for the next Alex Rider fic, it is planned and in the works!_

_The title is inspired by the quote below, a poem called 'Tears' by Edward Thomas that I recommend you check out._

_Warnings: Tarsus IV and everything that includes. Swearing and angst-y situations._

_Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek, I just play with it._

* * *

'_It seems I have no tears left._

_They should have fallen-_

_Their ghosts, if tears have ghosts,_

_Did fall – that day'_

_(Edward Thomas)_

The planet is still and Jim _(not Jimmy, not anymore, not ever ever ever again) _can almost hear every heartbeat, pounding out of his chest like it's going to make a run for it, and Jim _wishes _he could indulge that. Because he doesn't want to be here, doesn't want to see Bones' face crumpling when he sees where his daughter was living – or surviving, more like, because Jim knows there's a huge difference.

And he says, out loud, shatteringly stark in the silence, "She'll be okay, Bones," and he knows it's just a little bit of a lie, but not knowing what else to say.

Bones doesn't answer and Jim can't blame him. Joanna is hidden in the Enterprise's Medbay, tucked up with blankets and love and heartbreakingly beautiful tears, and Jim wants to tear out his brain because all he thinks is, _why couldn't I have that?_ Joanna is small and innocent and thin, but she has come out of this untouched, the clusterfuck that was Cerberus leaving her tiny but alive. There had been starvation and famine and riots but no controlling murderous tyrant (_don't go there, not ever ever ever again) _and so her spirit is still there, a little starved, but she'll fight back in time. Jim knows this. Bones doesn't.

They proceed across the surface of the planet, so grey and lifeless but not dead like (_no, no, no), _taking in everything they missed when searching for Joanna. The government still exists; fighting amongst itself but the colony will heal and carry on. Their job now is to set up medical tents, help those they can and mourn the rest. More ships will be arriving _(always too late, always) _with seeds and farming equipment and replicators and crop experts, everything needed to end the famine without more lives lost.

Jim tries to concentrate, he really does. He vaguely utters condolences and promises, swears on his father's grave (though he doesn't even have one, blown into smithereens and dust and ash and blood. There's nothing left for him to swear on but he doesn't mention this, too tired of the pity and freaked gazes to even try.) This won't happen again, he says, over and over, but all he can think of is a rotting planet and sightless corpses and thinks, it already has.

* * *

Then it is the ship's night and he's back on board, sitting in his quarters and wondering why the fuck Starfleet thought this would be a good assignment. But they don't know, except Pike and a couple of higher ups, and it's not their fault, not really. That doesn't stop the blame.

He sits, and thinks, and tries not to tear at his arms with blunt _(blood stained) _fingernails because he can't bear the images anymore, but he cannot _stop _and he hates this. He gets up, suddenly, not sure what he's doing but knowing he can't stay when his mind is tearing in half. He buried all this, so long ago, but the still planet down below him is far too similar and he cannot _do this._

But he's the Captain, and he has to. So he pretends, smiles like everything's all right with the world. Sits and listens to crew members complaining and suggesting and tries to forget about the bodies and hunger and more than anything, the all-consuming fear that is bitter on his tongue and salty with tears.

And if he wants to scream at them to get some perspective on life? Well, he bites down on the impulse (and ignores the bitterness) and lies instead. He's the Captain _(as if that means anything to anyone in real life. What the fuck is the point of being a Starfleet Captain if he can't even keep something like Cerberus from happening?) _He lies again and again and again, and hopes they don't notice the guilt in his eyes and pain on his tongue.

* * *

He sits by her bedside the next morning, takes advantage of the quiet as everyone is at breakfast, and watches her sleep. Bones is curled up next to her in a chair, his hand gripping hers even in sleep, as if afraid dreams might tear her away again. She's eight and small, eight and starved, but she'll be nine and alive, and that means everything _(and Jim was thirteen and small, thirteen and starved, fourteen and scarred and broken, and alive never meant a thing to him). _

Jim reaches out with a hand, strokes her exposed arm gently, the IV line marring her pale skin but it's a little price to pay. This isn't the first time he's met her, not even close, but it'll be a meeting all over again as a year in a famine will change everything about a person.

She blinks open her eyes, startling until she recognises the hand in hers and the quiet hum of the air system. She smiles at her father, face transforming into something a little less fractured, and Jim cannot help but echo the expression. She notices him, then, and tilts her head in greeting. Jim withdraws his hand from her arm, feeling too exposed under the child's _(not a child, not anymore)_ gaze.

"Hey, Jim," she says tiredly, her voice a little rough but stronger than it had been yesterday.

"Joanna," he replies with a slightly crooked smile. "How are you holding up?" And don't let it be said he's not a good actor; all he wants to do is tear at his arms until they're red and slick because all he keeps seeing is another little eight-year-old, even thinner than this one and even more broken _(so broken even the Starfleet medics couldn't save him)._

"I'm okay," she says quietly, her voice mature, but he doesn't, can't, forget her age and it's killing him.

"It's okay not to be," and the words hang in the air.

She fiddles with the blankets, looking down at the bed until he takes hold of the hand not held by Bones (who must be exhausted if he isn't waking). She looks him in the eye then, and he sees the scars she will hide from her father.

"I saw people die," she states so calmly that he doesn't answer at first.

"Yes," he replies at last. "You did."

"I wish I hadn't." He voice cracks, just a little, and Jim can't get over how young she is.

"I know," he whispers, and she seems to get that he's not just saying empty words. "I do know, sweetheart."

She sniffs. "I don't want to go back to Earth."

Jim feels helpless. He knows why, can understand her desire not to go back to the ordinary life that Earth personifies, not to seem like she's running away when so many people (people she _saw_) now can't. But she's eight, and she needs her mother, and Jim can't stop procedure no matter how much he may want to.

"I know that too," he says instead of all that. "But you're alive, Jo, and you've got to concentrate on that. You're a survivor, not a victim, and you can do _anything_."

"I don't know how to," and she's crying now, and Jim really doesn't know how to deal with this, but Bones seems to have some sort of tear radar because he's awake and making shushing noises at her and she's muffled in his embrace, so loved and protected that Jim _has _to sneak away (_he wishes he had that). _

Bones looks at him, his head leaning on top of Jo's, and breaks through Jim's defences with one word.

"Stay," he says, as if that doesn't mean everything. "Stay," he says, as if that isn't the word Jim has always needed to hear. Stay, and be wanted. Stay, and be loved. Stay, and be part of something that he has never really had.

Jim sits down again.

* * *

When Joanna is quiet and settled and sleeping, Bones gazes at Jim across the bed. Jim fidgets, awkward in the silence.

"She'll be okay," he says pointlessly, needing to break the silence.

"Like you are?" Bones asks gently, and Jim draws in a breath that won't come and tries to fight the urge to run away, far away, because he doesn't know how to do this and he understands how Jo feels, incapable of carrying on in a world so fucked up.

"Bones," Jim whispers, wrapping his arms around himself in the classic defensive position that he curses himself for but can't help.

"I have your medical file, Jim. I'm your CMO. Did you think I wouldn't know?" Despite the bluntness of his words, the tone is soft. Jim feels like a child and he doesn't like it but can't protest it, because Bone's child is better than nothing.

"Bones," he says again, unsure how to say anything else because how do you reply to the knowledge that your best friend knows your darkest secret?

_(here is the deepest secret nobody knows)_

Bones face is tired and gentle and kind, and he says, "Kid, let me help."

_(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud)_

And Jim doesn't know what to say or do or think, curled up broken with his best friend opposite him and the tiny child in between, looking so peaceful in sleep that Jim is almost jealous.

"What do you want me to say?" he murmurs, his voice so quiet that he barely hears but Bones is CMO and superman and a father all in one, and picks it up.

"Whatever you want," Bones replies, and says nothing else. Jim doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at the helplessness he feels (and swore, at thirteen, to never feel again).

_(and the sky of the sky of a tree called life)_

Jim's never been one for confessions or rants or grudges; he forgives and lets go and moves on, refusing to dwell. He doesn't know how to say that he can't help but see the bodies, or that he still smells the rot sometimes, or that he thinks a little bit of him died on the planet, but a lot of him was born too. On occasion he wonders if he could ever be a Captain without Tarsus, without the fuck up that left him in charge of twelve starving children.

_(which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)_

He doesn't know how to say any of this, and Bones just watches him struggle, his hand gripped by Joanna's in sleep, her pale face tearstained and Jim wished he could cry like she had, let it all out until he is empty and strung-out but _feeling_.

_(and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart)_

He can't say any of this, can't say _I love you _or _I need you _or even _I want you_. He's a twenty seven year old emotionally compromised Starfleet Captain with scars on his body and fear on his tongue and bodies in his closet and blood on his hands, and he can't say any of it.

And Bones is a thirty five year old Doctor with guilt lined on his face and a child held against his heart and grief seeping from pores on his skin, and he's sitting opposite Jim like none of it matters, like life can simply go on as it always has.

And so, swallowing the bitterness and salt, Jim gets up, watches Bones watch him with a tilted head, so like his daughter, and stands in front of him. He leans down and closes his eyes and _this, _this is all there is.

_i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)_

* * *

A/N: The poem in italics at the end is 'i carry your heart with me' by E. E. Cummings, and I fully recommend you check out the entire poem if you have not already. It is truly beautiful.

I hope you enjoyed, and please take the time to review.

Dreams


End file.
